Moon Goddess Arete

I recently returned from a fun, scary, exhausting, and overall excellent trip to the Palisades. Good times with Josh, Patrick, and Jon, and a new longest route for myself, as Josh and I climbed the short version of Moon Goddess Arete. (We rapped into the escape gully one pitch above the notch and did the “fourth class” pitches in the gully to the top.)

I’ll leave a few pictures here and send you to Josh’s blog for a more complete trip report.

Josh training for our ascent of Moon Goddess.

Jon observes Dark Star, Dark Star observes Jon.

We kicked steps to the base of Moon Goddess and Venusian Blind.

We had all of Temple Crag and Second Lake to ourselves.

Josh following the fourth pitch — no really, he’s in this picture.

The full moon casting shadows below Contact Pass. The climb took 19 hours tent-to-tent.

Goodbye Temple Crag. Moon Goddess Arete is the line just left of the largest shadowed gully.